I'm Still Here
by LeelaSmall
Summary: She had spent all her life in that strange world... but now she was free. (Candy Watterson belongs to CandyWatterson, who requested this story)


Darkness… Emptiness… Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Those simple words were enough to describe her surroundings. There was absolutely nothing around her; it was all an empty void of nothing. She was surprised how she was able to survive for so long. She didn't eat, rarely slept and had been wearing the same clothes for eight years straight, which somehow manage to grow as she did. But then again, it's not like she had any options, right? She was surrounded by… nothing.

She was so lonely… so painfully lonely… The only other person, if she could call him a 'person', who was in there with her was the one who had brought her there in the first place. The one they called 'The Snatcher', who tried by all means to nab more unsuspecting victims and take them back to his realm of loneliness and despair. Every day she saw how he would spread his curse by sending people chain e-mails and patiently waiting for someone to be thick-headed enough to ignore them and fall straight into his trap, and every day she tried desperately to warn them about the danger they were in by knocking against her side of people's mirrors and other reflective surfaces around their houses and screaming desperately. But as much as she tried, it seemed people just couldn't hear her pleads. Luckily they all managed to escape before it was too late.

She hugged her legs against her chest as she felt tears emerging in her eyes, remembering the day she had been taken away from her family and brought to that wretched world. It might have been a long time ago, back when she was just a toddler, but she recalled it like it had only happened yesterday, and as those vivid images replayed in her head once more, she couldn't help feel an unsettling tightness in her chest.

 _"_ _Look Nicole, I got an e-mail!"_

 _"_ _That's nice Richard, but hurry up! The babysitter will be here any minute!"_

 _"_ _Yeah yeah, just let me read this! Let's see…'You are now cursed. If you don't forward this email to ten people, the Snatcher will first take your money, then he will take your friends, then your family, then tonight, he will show his face in the mirror and with his long, cold claws he will rip your spirit away from you.' Psht! What do they think I am, stupid? Delete!"_

 _"_ _Richard, the babysitter's here, let's go! Thank you for coming on such short notice, sweetie. Gumball has a terrible fever and we need to take him to the hospital right away."_

 _"_ _No problem, Mrs. Watterson! I'll take good care of little Candy."_

 _"_ _Thank you so much. RICHARD!"_

 _"_ _I'm ready, I'm ready, let's go!"_

That was all it took. That night, while her parents were still at the hospital with her older brother, the creature came out of the mirror and took her away forever. The babysitter was already long gone by that time; he had scared her so much that she ran out of the house screaming. She was glad at least she was able to save herself, but wondered how she explained her disappearance to the police. The theory of a three-year-old being abducted by a mirror creature seemed sketchy, to say the least.

She took her thumb to her mouth and began sucking on it like she always did when she was nervous or depressed. She could only imagine the pain her parents went through when she disappeared. She missed them every day, and little by little she was starting to forget what they looked like. This made her even more depressed. She didn't want to forget. She didn't…

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw a large black mass float by her through an opening in the space right in front of her.

He was home.

The Snatcher drifted right by her, seemingly upset, and she couldn't help but release a silent sigh. Once again he had returned empty-handed, and he was visibly unhappy about it. He ignored her completely, not that he ever paid attention to her, but whenever he failed his missions he seemed to ignore her on purpose. He floated around angrily, releasing frustrated groans every few seconds. She knew it wasn't wise to approach him when he was like this, so she remained quiet in her spot.

Suddenly a portal opened up and he quickly dove into, disappearing without a trace. She knew what this meant; another careless soul had chosen to ignore the e-mail, and now it was time to claim his prize. The portal was left open, but since she didn't have the Snatcher's powers she couldn't cross it herself. All she could do was use it as a window to the outside world. Slowly rising to her feet, she adjust her pink dress and made her way towards the opening, peeking through it to see who would fall victim to the Snatcher's clutches this time, and what she saw almost made her heart stop.

She saw a family of five: the mother, a blue cat; the father, a pink rabbit; two sons, another blue cat and a fish with legs; and a daughter, another pink rabbit. She knew those people! The parents, at least, she recognized without a shadow of a doubt. They were her parents!

She banged her fists as hard as she could on the clear surface and screamed at the top of her lungs for them to run away, but her pleads were, as usual, left unheard. It wasn't too long until she saw the Snatcher's sharp claws bring them into his realm all at once, disregarding the two sons, which she quickly knew were the ones who had received the e-mail. He always did that; first he took their family, then he would terrorize them to no end. What exactly was he trying to accomplish here? One would assume he just wanted some company, but wasn't that going a bit too far?

She quickly turned around when she heard three different portals open up, one for each of the abducted family members. They all fell into the empty space at the same time, and she just stared at them as they examined their surroundings.

"Where are we?" the mother inquired as she looked around. "What happened? Why – "

She silenced herself when she noticed the young girl standing in front of her, who seemed to be on the verge of tears. She noticed immediately how she was a blue cat, just like her, and was wearing an outfit that seemed very familiar to her. The girl herself seemed to remind her of someone. Someone who she hadn't seen in a long time.

"Who… are you?" Nicole asked carefully, aware of the dangers that could lurk in such a place.

The girl couldn't hold it in anymore. Tears now rolling down her cheeks, she quickly ran up to her mother and held her in a tight embrace, sobbing uncontrollably against her chest.

"Mommy!" she wailed, her voice echoing in the void. "Mommy, it's me! It's me, mommy!"

"'Mommy'?" Nicole whispered to herself, her eyes widening in realization soon after. "Candy?! Candy, is that you?"

"I was so scared, mommy!" she continued to cry against her parent. "I was so scared…"

"My little Candy!" Nicole hugged her daughter even tighter, now starting to cry herself. "I thought I lost you! I missed you so much…"

"Candy?" Richard crawled closer to his wife, his daughter raising her head towards him. "Is it really you?"

"It's me, daddy." She smiled weakly, fresh tears coming from her eyes.

Richard broke into tears and hugged both females, the three crying in almost perfect unison. Meanwhile Anais was watching the whole thing from a few feet away.

"Wow, first Lexy, and now this?" she whispered to herself. "How many more lost sisters do I have?"

Candy noticed the fourth voice among them and looked over at Anais, tugging on her mother's sleeve to get her attention.

"Mommy, who's that?" she moved her head in the pink bunny's direction.

"Oh, that's your younger sister, Anais." She replied, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "You also have an older sister named Lexy, and two brothers named Gumball and Dar –"

She suddenly stopped talking and looked around, her eyes now as wide as they could get.

"Where are Gumball and Darwin?!" Nicole shouted when she didn't see her children anywhere.

"They're still in the real world. The Snatcher went after them!" Candy ran up to her window to the real world, looking for the remaining members of her family.

"What will happen to them?" Nicole asked as she and the rest of her family approached their long lost relative.

"If they're lucky… they might just survive."

With chills running up and down their spines, the Wattersons watched attentively as Gumball and Darwin did their best to escape the Snatcher's grip with the help of a young ghost whom Candy had never seen before. Apparently the Snatcher was her dad, and the only way to defeat him was to summon him and smash the mirror he would emerge through after the sunlight struck him. They tried many ways stay safe, even going to the point of using spells that came with a terrible cost. Candy was starting to realize that her siblings weren't as bright as she had originally thought.

Finally they reached the attic, where Gumball called out the Snatcher's real name five times in front of a full-body mirror. As it was expected he emerged and since the window was still open he got struck by the light of the morning sun, which caused him to almost melt under it. He retreated into the mirror, and for the first time the Wattersons were face to face with the creature who had captured them. They shrieked in horror, but all of a sudden the portal behind him exploded, sending him flying over them. Candy ducked and covered her head as glass shards flew everywhere.

She coughed a few times and fanned the smoke around her away with her hand as she raised her head, her gaze falling upon the Snatcher, who lied on the ground motionless, his body glowing an eerie green light. Her family was gone, and she just assumed the curse had been broken and they had been returned home. But why was she still there, then? Maybe she had been there for far too long…

Before her eyes she saw how the Snatcher turned into someone completely different: a man with a white beard, hollow-looking eyes, a red shirt, black pants, a long grey coat and a cap in the same color. He reminded her of a sailor. Was this the Snatcher's true form? Or Vladus Lovus Lokowitchki, as she heard him be called a few moments before?

He rose to his feet and dusted himself off, adjusting the cap on top of his head. He noticed her there, kneeling on the floor and staring at him with a perplexed look on her face. He slowly walked up to her and knelt down in front of her, placing a hand on her cheek.

"I'm so sorry, Candy." He spoke in a calm tone, almost like a loud whisper. "I know I can't really bring back all the years I kept you in here, but for all that's worth, I really did enjoy your company. Even if I didn't show that I did."

She remained silent in her spot, but gave him a weak smile. He smiled back at her and gave her a soft pat on the head before making his way towards the now open portal, and Candy watched as he was reunited with his daughter. Even though he neglected that fact that she was a ghost and he was a human, falling down the window when he tried to run towards her, it was sweet to see that even after his death he was once again reunited with her, now a ghost himself. That way he was finally able to hug his little girl for the first time in who knows how long.

As her family gathered to watch the heart-melting scene, Candy lifted herself up and started walking in the direction of the opening to the real world. Now was her time to be united with her family once more, to join in their activities, their laughter, their sorrow… to feel loved once again.

Now was her turn to live.

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE (PLEASE READ)**

 **All your feels are mine, now. xD LOL JK**

 **This story was requested by CandyWatterson. She wanted me to write a story about her OC, Candy Watterson, who had been kidnaped by the Snatcher at age three and only escaped after the events of "The Mirror", so after watching that episode again more attentively, I started writing this. Took a total of four hours to write it, and I'm pretty proud of it. Also I wrote it while listening to GatoPaint's "The Puppet", which fueled me to write something a little more angst-y. Now I'm off to write a Five Nights at Freddy's fanfic! 8D**

 **I hope you enjoyed this and please leave a review if you did. ;)**

 ***brofist***

 **~LeelaSmall**


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